Draft:Fairness

Fairness is generally understood to be a moral and ethical consequence encompassing elements of justice and equality.

"Just; equitable; even-handed; equal, as between conflicting interests".

"Fairness is not something a person deserves or something that happens to him by chance, but the result of a cognitive process by a group of people or a society or the majority of this society, leading to a clear decision to apply the fairness norm. In some settings, the norm is referred to, in others it is abandoned".

Free market economic theorist Thomas Sowell has argued that "[b]ecause there is no precisely defined and widely agreed upon definition of fairness, what the term has come to mean in economic policy-making is that those with political power can restrict the options of individuals and enterprises, in order to produce whatever end result those in power choose to call 'fair'".

Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, 2001, John Rawls. ISBN 0-674-00511-2, expanding on the 1985 essay, "Justice as Fairness".

Due process has also been frequently interpreted as limiting laws and legal proceedings (see substantive due process) so that judges, instead of legislators, may define and guarantee fundamental fairness, justice, and liberty.